Former farmer sells Ice Cream on Fire at Illinois farmers market

Wednesday

Jun 27, 2012 at 12:01 AMJun 27, 2012 at 4:14 AM

At two farmers markets in Springfield, Ill., Lance Armour sells Ice Cream on Fire. “People ask, ‘How can you have hot and cold together?’” said the proprietor of Lanny’s Family-Style Ice Cream. More about that later.

“People ask, ‘How can you have hot and cold together?’” said the proprietor of Lanny’s Family-Style Ice Cream. More about that later.

Shoppers at the Old Capitol Farmers Market and the Illinois Products Market might remember Armour selling specialty lettuces in past years. But all those years of farming took their toll when he was diagnosed with skin cancer.

“My doctor said I should get out of the sun,” said Armour, who lives in Athens, Ill., and also works as a pressman at Frye-Williamson Press. After successful medical treatment, he looked around for another product to sell.

He found it at the Spoon River Festival in Lewistown, Ill., last fall when he noticed a guy selling freshly churned ice cream at an outdoor stand. Over the winter, Armour did some research, bought some equipment and put together a three-tub ice cream maker.

“Everything is made here,” he said last week at his farmers market stand. “We buy local peaches, strawberries, blackberries and more from the market. Whatever we can buy locally, we do,” he stressed.

In a truck next to his stand, he and his crew make up a dairy base. Canisters of that base go into one of the wooden tubs in his homemade ice cream maker; the tub is then packed with ice and coarse salt. (The salt turns the ice into a saltwater slush that has a lower temperature than ice alone.) Armour flips a switch, and the canister automatically starts churning. It takes about 20 minutes to make a gallon of ice cream.

“My neighbor tried to talk me into it for several weeks,” Armour said about Jerry Jimenez, the Darn Hot Peppers vendor located next to Armour at the downtown market. Among other things, Jimenez sells jars of Apricot Ambrosia Spread, a combination of apricots, habanero chiles, honey, brown sugar and lemon juice.

Jimenez suggested that Armour pour some of the sauce on his vanilla ice cream. Armour resisted for weeks, but finally gave it a try. To his surprise, he liked it. He named it Ice Cream on Fire.

“It’s sweet at first, then it gets hot, but it’s not super hot. It sells, and it gets a lot of people asking questions,” Armour said.